J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Switzerland 1802 > Swiss Figures Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Group of Barges or Ferries 1802

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Group of Barges or Ferries’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 9 Recto:
Group of Barges or Ferries 1802
D04806
Turner Bequest LXXVIII 9
Pencil on white laid paper, 163 x 198 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil with letters and numbers
Stamped in black ‘LXXVIII 9’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner turned the sketchbook round to provide a landscape format for this, one of three leaves in the book to show boats or boatmen; see also folios 10 and 11(D04807, D04808). David Hill has suggested that the last of these, which includes a mountainous background, was drawn on the Urnersee, the eastern end of Lake Lucerne;1 the catalogue of 1974 Royal Academy exhibition had earlier speculated that the location was Thun. Here, Turner has drawn two wide-bottomed barges or ferries, the more distant one with a canopy over the deck. His annotations, hard to decipher and not noticed by Finberg, may be colour notes or indications of scale.
1
David Hill, Turner in the Alps: The Journey through France and Switzerland in 1802, London 1992, p.169.
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
May 2003

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Group of Barges or Ferries 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2003, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-group-of-barges-or-ferries-r1133511, accessed 21 November 2024.